Tuesday, March 17, 2009

New Book Recommendations: Julia Angin and David Marsh

Julia Angwin, a journalist who writes for the Wall Street Journal, explains the history of MySpace.com in this solid and well-researched book entitled Stealing myspace. The author attempts a decoding of the appeal behind MySpace and what it is that the network represents. She also traces the history of its financial success, what Rupert Murdock saw in it and how it managed to reach so many people for a cornucopia of reasons. What makes this book interesting and credible is that it is written by someone who translates her own savvy of business news to the rest of the reader market. It's cogently written which is something that I have yet to observe in books written by business journalists. I highly recommend this.I recommend this.

The Euro by David Marsh.The reason why I developed an interest in this book is because of the great reviews it received from both academics and business news specialists. The text is reported to be the first account of the Euro that is actually informed by sound history and socio-cultural research. Naturally, I had to give it a try.

Granted, a background in Business and European history will make one's understanding of the Euro more enjoyable. David Marsh thoughtfully explains why the historical relationship between France and Germany is relevant when making sense of the, at times, capricious behavior of the Euro. This is not the kind of book to speed read, however. I recommend this mostly out of history-informed reasons. It's not just about European currency but rather the current identity of the old world and why even its currency cannot be treated outside the realm of informed history. Tip of the hat to David Marsh for an impressively researched book. I did feel like the author actually gets Europe and European mentality. This is another text that shows that currency has much to do with history, cultural heritage, and national psychology.

5 comments:

The Euro sounds really interesting!I also believe that an understanding of the behavior of the currency is closely connected to an understanding of history and heritage.Thanks for this. I appreciate these reviews.